WILLIAMSBURG, VA.- The Muscarelle Museum of Art invites visitors to reflect on loss, resilience and the power of rebuilding with “Forever Marked By The Day: A Quarter Century of Mourning and Renewal,” opening June 26. Marking 25 years since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the exhibition fosters intergenerational dialogue about how communities navigate collective grief, while exploring the role architecture and design can play in healing and renewal.

Foregrounding the responsibility to remember as time moves further from Sept. 11, the exhibition examines how the new World Trade Center site serves as a memorial honoring people and commemorating heroes, while also connecting past, present and future through architecture. The presentation pays homage to the architects, artists, designers and photographers who have worked to ensure that the site becomes a public space inspiring hope, healing and awe.


Balthazar Korab, Architect Minoru Yamasaki with model of the World Trade Center, c. 1971, Library of Congress

“There is a whole generation of young people who were not alive or were too young to remember Sept. 11, a day that profoundly changed many lives,” said David Brashear, the Muscarelle’s director and co-curator of the exhibition. “Through ‘Forever Marked By The Day,’ we hope to encourage thoughtful reflection on the lasting impact of that day and the role architecture and design can play in honoring memory.”

Through an architectural lens, “Forever Marked By The Day” examines the physical transformations that have occurred through the decades at the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan. Loans from a variety of archives and architectural practices, including building designs, photographs, models and artifacts, will tell a layered story of human ingenuity, remembrance and transformation.

It begins by investigating the evolution of southern Manhattan and the urban renewal that resulted from American architect Minoru Yamasaki being commissioned in 1962 to design the Twin Towers. Drawings from 1963-64 by Carlos Diniz, one of the era’s great architectural illustrators, were used to build momentum for the construction of two towering skyscrapers. In Balthazar Korab’s 1970s photographs, the new buildings gleam as they jut out from behind the Brooklyn Bridge.


Daniel Libeskind, World Trade Center Master Plan, 2003, Studio Libeskind

These images and illustrations have a poignancy given what we know now about the buildings’ eventual role in history. Covers of “The New Yorker” from 1974-2014 illustrate that arc.

Deeper into the exhibition, viewers see how, against all odds and some conventional wisdom, it was determined that the site would be redeveloped after the devastating 2001 attacks. Photographs and models illustrate how the reimagined buildings and spaces were envisioned to be not only a commercial center but also a place of gathering and reflection.

“‘Forever Marked By The Day’ reflects the many forms remembrance can take,” said Adriano Marinazzo, exhibition co-curator and curator of architecture, photography and European art at the Muscarelle. “By exploring the built environment, we hope visitors will see how architecture can give form to absence, transforming a site marked by trauma into a space of dignity, contemplation and civic purpose.”

Daniel Libeskind’s drawings and models show his optimistic plan for the site, which resulted in an urban village that remembers the past but looks boldly to the future. They include David Childs’ One World Trade Center, at a symbolic height of 1,776 feet, emphasizing the core of the story of America. Plans and images of the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava’s “Oculus,” a towering white structure dubbed “the people’s cathedral,” show another example of how architects and designers renewed the area and reinforced New York City as a global hub while paying tribute to its past through sweeping and monumental structures.


Santiago Calatrava, Study for the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, 2003-2016, Santiago Calatrava LLC

Collectively, the exhibition’s 70-plus works and artifacts provide a bird’s eye view of an incredibly significant period for the United States and New York City, spanning the transition from the late 20th century to the beginning of the 21st. Educational programs, public conversations and interpretive materials will accompany the presentation, offering accessible learning opportunities for students, families and community groups.

“‘Forever Marked By The Day’ provides space to take stock of our history, but also to observe how as a nation we move forward,” Brashear said. “The World Trade Center of today shows us that, with purpose and conviction, our cities can evolve to be infused with our human spirit, and when done well, they can even foster a sense of hope and collective accomplishment.”